2015 Queensland state election: an overview

This paper provides an overview of the issues and
outcomes for the January 2015 election for the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
Where appropriate, it draws on the Library’s
earlier publication on the 2012 Queensland state election.[1]

The 2015 Queensland state election result surprised
many observers with the dramatic shift in the fortunes of the two major
parties. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), having lost government at the 2012
election and retaining just seven seats, emerged with 44 of the 89 seats with a
swing of 10.8 per cent. The Liberal National Party (LNP), which had won a
record majority of 78 of the 89 seats at the 2012 state election, experienced a
swing of 8.3 per cent against it with its seats reduced to 42. Of the remaining
seats, two were won by Katter’s Australian Party and one by Independent Peter
Wellington.

The election outcome was initially unclear when it was revealed
that a Palmer United Party candidate was ineligible as a result of being an
undischarged bankrupt. Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) indicated that it
would refer the Ferny Grove election result to the Court of Disputed Returns
but subsequently decided not to proceed based on legal advice, paving the way
for the ALP to form minority government with the support of an Independent.

Several key issues emerged during the election
campaign including political financing, privatisation and asset sales, the
impact of mining on the Great Barrier Reef and anti-association laws. Other
events also overshadowed the election, including two defamation cases involving
Premier Campbell Newman, a Senate Select Committee
into the Queensland Government’s administration of Commonwealth funds, and
leadership issues in the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments.

The incoming ALP minority government led by Annastacia Palaszczuk
features several milestones in Australian and Queensland political history,
including:

the
first Australian ministry with a majority of women

the
first female state opposition leader to lead her party to victory

the
second all-female elected leadership team in Australia

Queensland’s
first female Attorney-General and

the
first Indigenous woman MP in the Queensland Parliament and Queensland’s first
Indigenous minister.

On 6 January 2015 Premier Campbell Newman announced that the
state election would be held on 31 January, two months before the Government
reached its full three-year term. It would be the first January election in
Australia for more than a century, and provided for a minimum 26-day campaign.[2]
Elections for the Queensland Legislative Assembly are regulated
by the Electoral Act 1992
(Qld) and managed by the ECQ. Queensland is the only Australian state to have a
unicameral legislature.[3]
An election is usually announced towards the end of each term,
but there is no minimum period required between state elections so a government
can choose to hold the election at any time during its three year term.

According to Premier Newman, the snap election was intended
to overcome the ‘endless politicking and uncertainty’ over the Queensland
economy which was experiencing difficulties as the mining boom slowed.[4]
The Queensland election took place a little more than two months
after the Victorian state election at which the first-term Coalition Government
led by Denis Napthine had been soundly defeated. The Victorian result was
widely considered to be a reflection of broader voter dissatisfaction with the
federal government’s proposed budget measures, and this dissatisfaction was
also expected to be felt in the Queensland election outcome. The timing
of the Queensland election meant that voters would go to the polls before the
federal parliament returned in early February to debate the budget measures.[5]

The LNP led by Campbell Newman won the
Queensland state election held on 24 March 2012 with a swing of 15.7 per cent
against the ALP—the largest recorded swing in Australian political history. The
ALP, which had held power in Queensland for 20 of the previous 22 years, was
reduced to seven of the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly, and was forced to
‘rely on the mercy of Mr Newman for it to retain official party status’.[6]

After losing government at the 1998 election the Coalition
parties, comprising the National Party of Australia (Nationals) and the Liberal
Party of Australia (Liberals), had been slowly building support. Their lowest
electoral performance was in 2001 when they won 15 seats (12 to the Nationals
and three to the Liberals) with 28.48 per cent of the vote. By 2012 the
Nationals and Liberals, which had merged in 2008 to become the Liberal National
Party of Queensland, captured a record 78 seats out of the 89
seats. The Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) won two seats and two seats went to
independents.[7]
Newman, who had sought preselection whilst holding the position of Brisbane
Lord Mayor, won the seat of Ashgrove with nearly 52 per cent of the vote, and
became the first premier in Australian history to attain that post from outside
the parliament. With the LNP winning the largest parliamentary majority
in Australian history, Newman was dubbed the ‘”can-do” commander’ by the Australian.[8]

The ALP failed to achieve 50 per cent of the first
preference vote in any seat, and lost 44 sitting MPs including
ten senior ministers. Its result was below 40 per cent in all but two
seats, Woodridge and Inala. TheAge described the result as
‘Labor’s ground zero’, noting that the party would take decades to rebuild.[9]
Brisbane’s major daily, The Courier Mail, had beencritical of the long-term Labor Government throughout the
campaign. On the eve of the election the newspaper noted that, while the LNP
campaign had been light on policy detail, it was sufficient to convince the
electorate: ‘[o]verwhelmingly, its main positive, however, is that it is anything
but Labor.’[10] Following the election, the newspaper welcomed
the change of government and its ‘”can do” mentality that defines our
character’.[11]

Former Labor Premier Anna Bligh’s program of asset sales, combined
with her personal attacks on Newman’s credibility, were considered to be major
factors contributing to the ALP’s demise at the polls.[12] Bligh retained her own seat
of South Brisbane, surviving a swing of 9.8 per cent against her, but she
resigned from Parliament after the election saying that ‘her continued presence
would prevent Labor rebuilding’.[13]
Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Member for Inala, was elected unopposed as the new
ALP leader.[14]
With the ALP reduced to a handful of parliamentary seats, concerns were
expressed that the parliamentary processes of scrutiny and accountability would
be greatly weakened, as the tasks of opposition would be shouldered by too few
ALP MPs.[15]

Following the LNP’s historic victory in 2012 the Newman
Government began focusing on key elements of its reform agenda. In 2012 Premier
Newman announced his intention to restore the Government’s finances by making
significant cuts to public spending in his first budget including the proposal
to cut more than 14,000 public service jobs.[16]
The job cuts, aiming to save $3.7 billion by 2015 ̶ 16, attracted
union-led protests from angry public servants, many of whom lived in Brisbane’s
commuter suburbs. Indeed Newman’s own suburban seat of Ashgrove, with its high
concentration of employees in the public health and education sectors, was one
of the hardest-hit by the cuts.[17]

In 2013 the LNP Government introduced
controversial legislation to target criminal associations. The suite of
legislation targeting ‘bikie’ gangs included the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013(‘VLAD Act’), the Tattoo Parlours Act 2013 and the Criminal Law (Criminal Organisations Disruption) Amendment Act 2013 (‘the CODA’).[18] The legislation contained a series of provisions making it a criminal
offence for members of a known criminal organisation to meet in numbers greater
than two in public places or designated clubhouses, for new members to be
recruited, and for members to work in specific industries. The legislation
introduced tough mandatory sentencing laws to be imposed on top of the court’s sentence
for any crimes committed in furtherance of the organisation.

During 2014 Premier Newman became involved in a defamation
action arising from a long-running dispute between Newman (LNP) and Queensland
federal MP and mining magnate Clive Palmer (Palmer United Party) (PUP). A
lessee of a coalmine in the Galilee Basin, Palmer was referred to the Crime and
Misconduct Commission (CMC) after the Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney claimed that
Mr Palmer had sought ‘special treatment’ in 2012 for his mining operations,
Waratah Coal, in return for his support of the LNP.[19]
Mr Palmer subsequently repudiated the claims, releasing letters from the LNP
Government that proved its willingness to continue dealing with him. Palmer
refused to refer his evidence to the CMC because he considered that it lacked
independence from the Newman Government, and indicated that he planned to sue
Mr Seeney for defamation in the Supreme Court.[20]
In May 2014 Palmer served a defamation action against Newman after Palmer took
exception to Newman’s claims in a media interview that Palmer had tried to
‘buy’ his government.[21]
Palmer stated that the claims ‘were totally false and damaging to his
integrity’.[22]
Palmer promised any damages awarded through the legal action would be donated
to Mission Australia to assist the charity with its work to help sacked
Queensland public servants.[23]
In July 2014 Palmer, who had declared his opposition to the federal Abbott
Government’s proposed $7 Medicare co-payment for a general practitioner visit,
accused the Queensland Premier of not standing up to the Prime Minister.[24]
Palmer, a former member of the LNP, was thought to have fallen out with Newman
over the Queensland Government’s rejection of his coalmine proposal, and was
now focused on ‘beating Campbell Newman’ and destroying the Liberal-National
alliance in Queensland.[25]
Meanwhile PUP Senator Glenn Lazarus proposed a Senate enquiry into the
Queensland Government’s administration to report to the Commonwealth Parliament
by 31 March 2015 (see Senate inquiry into Newman Government below).[26]

Palmer’s defamation action against Newman was followed by a
separate action a week before the 2015 state election. The action was filed by
Newman and Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney against the Sydney-based broadcaster Alan
Jones on 23 January 2015 in response to a series of radio programs which aired
between 19 and 21 January 2015.[27]
During the programs Jones claimed that Newman and Seeney lied to him about
their plans for the expansion of the New Hope coal mine at Acland on the
Darling Downs in southern Queensland.[28]
In response, Newman and Seeney claimed that they were defamed by Jones when he
claimed the LNP received a ‘bribe’ of $700,000 from the owners of the mine in
the form of donations to the party, and that this donation had induced Newman
and Seeney to approve the expansion plan.’[29]

Newman also sought damages over claims that he lied in a
press release in 2012 when, as Leader of the Opposition, ‘he said the LNP would
not approve the expansion if elected’.[30]
Newman and Seeney both sought damages due to the ‘the sensational language,
tone and prominence of the matters complained of’, and because Alan Jones made
the claims ‘knowing them to be false or with reckless indifference to their
truth or falsity and lacking an honest belief in what he published’.[31]
Clive Palmer offered Alan Jones his financial support, stating that ‘Campbell
Newman wants to intimidate [Jones] and stifle freedom of speech which is one of
the foundations of our great democracy’.[32]
The LNP agreed to pay Newman’s and Mr Sweeney’s legal costs. Some legal experts
suggested that, whilst defamation actions are not uncommon amongst politicians,
it was a risky approach during an election campaign because it served to
attract voter attention to the allegations.[33]

Large swings to the ALP in two state by-elections during
2014 signalled the degree to which the LNP Government’s popularity had declined
by mid-2014, giving the party further cause for concern for its re-election
chances as it neared the end of its turbulent first term in office.[34]

On 22 February 2014 the Redcliffe by-election was held to
fill a vacancy left by the resignation of sitting LNP member Scott Driscoll.[35]
He had been suspended from the party in March 2013 following allegations of
financial improprieties and subsequently resigned from the LNP to sit as an
independent and resigned from Parliament in November 2013.[36]
The by-election was won by the ALP’s Yvette D’Ath (57.12 per cent),
representing a 17 per cent swing.[37]

The Stafford by-election was held on 19 July 2014 following
the resignation of the sitting LNP member Dr Chris Davis who had held the
position of Assistant Minister for Health in the Newman Government.[38]
He resigned from the ministry after differences with the Newman Government over
doctors’ contracts and electoral donation laws, and he subsequently resigned
from parliament creating what ABC election analyst Antony Green described as a
‘difficult by-election for the Newman government’.[39]
The by-election was won by the ALP’s Anthony Lynham (62 per cent). The seat was
regarded as a safe ALP seat that had been taken by the LNP in 2012 so, while
its loss was not unexpected, the 18.6 per cent swing against the LNP was
significant. Newman initially pointed to the difficult issues that his government
was addressing, then followed up with an apology for his government’s more
controversial policies and pledged to listen more to unhappy voters. He also
announced a series of reversals of some of his government’s policy decisions,
although these were perceived as largely ‘cosmetic’.[40]

In October 2014 the Newman Government became the subject of
a federal parliamentary inquiry following support for the inquiry by the Palmer
United Party, the ALP and the Greens. The federal government had previously
succeeded in averting an inquiry, and argued that it was ‘without legal
precedent and overrides parliamentary convention’.[41]
The Senate Select Committee into Certain aspects of Queensland Government
Administration related to Commonwealth Government Affairs, chaired by Senator
Lazarus (PUP), commenced its hearings on 13 November 2014. The terms of
reference included the Queensland Government’s administration of Commonwealth
funds allocated to Queensland since 2012, judicial independence and separation
of powers in the Queensland courts and judicial system, the approval process
for development of projects for export of resources and services, and the
Commonwealth Government’s oversight of approvals for coal seam gas projects in
Queensland.[42]

Following
the announcement of the 2015 state election on 6 January 2015, Premier Newman
launched the LNP’s campaign on 18 January 2015 by emphasising his government’s
‘strong’ record over the past three years in changing Queensland’s health,
education and transport systems, as well as highlighting the strengthening of
the state’s economy.[43]
Anticipating a second term, he outlined the cost of living savings that
families could expect to receive, funded from the sale of asset leases, such as
the reduction in household water bills and the subsidisation of the solar bonus
scheme. Newman further pledged $90 million into the research and
entrepreneurship sector, hundreds of university scholarships for teaching
degrees and the construction of up to 22 new schools.[44]

At the ALP’s campaign launch on 20 January
2015, Opposition Leader Palaszczuk highlighted job creation and training
measures as key policy platforms for the ALP, and declared the election to be a
vote on privatisation and cost-cutting by the Newman Government.[45] She also sought to
emphasise the Government’s close links to the Prime Minister Tony Abbott and
the Commonwealth Government.[46]
Palaszczuk announced $240 million over four years to fund community and
industry organisations, three-year payroll tax holidays for companies moving to
Queensland, $34 million to improve TAFE institutions, and an injection of $200
million to the Royalties for Regions fund.[47]
On environmental policy she promised that the ALP would invest in research to
increase protection of the Great Barrier Reef, and would ensure stricter
regulation of maritime traffic.[48]
She also emphasised that the ALP would only announce policies it could fund
without selling the state’s assets.[49]
The Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten spoke at the launch, stating that
the LNP had turned the Prime Minister into an ‘invisible man’ and that Prime
Minister Abbott and Newman were a ‘double team’ working to cut services.[50]

The first leaders’ debate of the campaign was
held as a live-to-air broadcast or ‘people’s forum’ in Brisbane on 23 January.
One hundred undecided voters were in attendance and questions were asked at
random from amongst their number. At the end of the debate TheCourier-Mail
and Sky News (the co-hosts of the forum) proclaimed Newman to be the
winner.[51] The second, and final, leaders’ debate was held on 30 January
on the eve of the election. Accordingly the leaders played it safe, reiterating
their main policies and avoiding any costly mistakes. As a result no media
outlet was willing to call a definitive winner, although commentators tended to
favour one or other of the candidates without declaring a champion.

Before becoming Premier, Newman had twice served as
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor and was widely regarded as a successful politician. An
APN poll conducted five months into Newman’s leadership in 2012, however, had
shown that 65 per cent of voters thought his government had performed ‘below
expectations’.[52]
As his first term as Premier progressed, Newman’s leadership style came under
increasing public scrutiny with various commentators labelling him as
‘arrogant’ and ‘uncaring’,[53]
‘militaristic’[54]
and ‘abrasive, even vindictive’.[55]
Whilst few observers were predicting an ALP victory given the scale of the LNP
victory in the 2012 state election, there was a palpable sense of anger in the
electorate with the Newman Government’s unpopular policies and leadership
style.[56]
Tony Fitzgerald QC, the former chair of the Commission of Inquiry into Official
Corruption in Queensland (1987 ̶ 9), emerged as one of his fiercest
critics:

From behind a populist façade, [the Newman Government]
engaged in rampant nepotism, sacked, stacked and otherwise reduced the
effectiveness of parliamentary committees, subverted and weakened the state’s
anti-corruption commission, made unprecedented attacks on the courts and the
judiciary, appointed a totally unsuitable Chief Justice, reverted to selecting
male judges almost exclusively and, from a position of lofty ignorance,
dismissed its critics for their effrontery.[57]

Newman himself conceded that his government was facing a
tight election that, if the polls were any indication, could see a minority ALP
Government returned if ‘wasted votes’ went to independents and minor parties.[58]
Political scientist John Wanna later wrote that the rush to the polls
post-Christmas was inexplicable given that Newman had nine months left of his
term, concluding that it was ‘an all-or-nothing bid for calculated political
gain’ that failed.[59]

In the weeks leading up to the election, polling indicated
that Newman could lose his own seat of Ashgrove, causing some commentators to
speculate about the possibility that the LNP could win the election and its
leader lose his seat.[60]
Given that Newman’s selection as party leader in 2012 was influenced by his
ability to wrest inner-city seats from ALP hands as a popular ex-mayor, it was
reasoned that many of these seats would also be susceptible to any decline in
support for his leadership. As early as October 2014 the LNP was reported as
being under pressure to announce a leadership succession plan should Newman
lose his seat.[61]
Newman himself insisted that the LNP’s fate was directly tied to the LNP
winning Ashgrove and that, if he lost Ashgrove, the LNP would lose government
(see Appendix 3).[62]

In the midst of the 2015 election campaign, media attention
focused on the impact of the Newman Government’s changes to political donation
disclosure laws in 2014 that enabled donors to give large amounts (up to
$12,400, bringing it into line with federal disclosure limits) without
disclosure and exploiting the gap between legal donations and fees for goods
and services.[63]
The ALP accused the LNP of receiving $11 million from secret donors, and
promised to reduce the threshold if they came into office.[64]
During the first leaders’ debate, Newman asked Palaszczuk if her party’s
donation money was ‘clean’, and to guarantee that she had not accepted
donations from bikies. Palaszczuk dismissed the claim as ‘ridiculous, offensive
and just desperate’.[65]
Newman repeated the claim the next day, stating that the funds were being
channelled through the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
and that the ALP had to prove they did not accept such donations. When asked
for evidence, Newman told reporters to try googling CFMEU bikie links and see
what came up.[66]

As in previous state elections, the issue of privatisation
was at the forefront and became the major point of difference between the major
parties. Commentators observed that a sense of betrayal over the
actions of the Bligh Labor Government in relation to privatising Queensland
Rail was a major factor in the ALP’s electoral defeat in the 2012 state
election, and that the 2015 state election would be a ‘referendum on leasing
state assets for half a century to pay down debt’.[67] Central to the
LNP’s campaign for re-election was its plan to invest in a range of
infrastructure projects and reduce debt by raising $37 billion through the
leasing of state-owned ports, power generators and other energy distributing
infrastructure. The leases were for a period of 50 years with the option to
renew for another 49 years. The ALP opposed the selling off of state assets and
repeatedly cast it as one of the core issues of the campaign, if not the main
issue. As Palaszczuk stated: ‘I can sum up the difference between the LNP and
Labor in six simple words: Labor will not sell our assets’.[68]
The ALP also claimed that future governments would continue to receive $2
billion a year in dividend revenue if the assets remained in the hands of the
state.[69]

Environmental concerns about the Great Barrier Reef emerged
as another key issue, further complicating the dispute over the Government’s
handling of coalmining leases discussed above. The Newman Government had
approved increased maritime traffic through the Great Barrier Reef for coal
traffic, an upgrade of port facilities at Abbot Point, and the dumping of
dredge spoil in the Caley Valley wetlands which are connected to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
(WHA).[70]
One opinion poll had indicated that 73.2 per cent of Queenslanders opposed
dumping dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef WHA. The proposed upgrade
involved a rail link to coalmine leases in the Galilee Basin region southwest
of the port.[71]
Early campaign polling indicated that the normally safe LNP seat of Whitsunday,
where Abbot Point is situated, was trending towards the ALP. The ALP, in turn,
announced that they would not fund the port upgrade until the Galilee Basin
issue was resolved, that it would not sell assets for mining projects, and that
it would ban the dumping of dredge spoil in both locations.[72]

The Newman Government’s suite of legislation
aimed at ‘bikie’ gangs introduced in 2013 proved to be controversial, with
Labor MP Jackie Trad calling them ‘chaotic and unworkable...They are the
supertrawler equivalent in law enforcement sweeping everyone up and treating them
as guilty before being proven innocent’.[73]
In November 2014 the High Court rejected a challenge by a member of the Hell’s
Angels bikie gang.[74] Despite originally voting for the legislation,
the ALP declared that it would repeal the laws and promised a review of the
legislation signalling a return to the laws introduced by the Bligh Labor
Government in 2009.[75]

Both major parties outlined detailed health policies at the
start of the campaign. The LNP promised to add an extra 1,700 nurses, 490
doctors and 464 health practitioners over three years, and proposed a policy—at
a cost of $583 million—whereby the Government would pay for public patients to
have surgery in private hospitals if the expected wait time for a procedure
fell outside the recommended wait time.[76]
Newman received little criticism over his heath policy in the media, and was
described by some commentators as having neutralised an area of traditional LNP
criticism while past ALP governments were perceived to have mismanaged health
funding.[77]
Indeed, an early election poll showed the LNP leading the ALP 46 per cent to 43
per cent in relation to who was more trusted to manage the health care system.[78]
The ALP similarly promised additional spending and reform in the public health
sector having offered to employ an additional 400 nurses, as well as adding up
to 1,000 new graduate nurse positions in teaching hospitals each year for four
years.[79]
The ALP also promised to legislate nurse-to-patient ratios. However, whilst health
remained an important election issue to voters, it did not become a contentious
issue for either major party.[80]

Whilst polls in early 2013 suggested that the LNP would win
on first preference votes at that time, support dropped sharply in October 2013
as the Government faced criticism of its new enterprise agreement with the
Queensland public service, changes to electoral donation laws, the move towards
privatisation following the Commission of Audit report, public service job cuts,
and the anti-association ‘bikie’ laws. Polling trends were ‘volatile’ during
2014.[81]
In the first quarter of 2014 the LNP was ahead 52 ̶ 48, but the LNP recorded
its worst performance in the April–June 2014 quarter where the fall-out from
the government’s reforms continued to build and the emergence of new disputes,
such as the decision to appoint Tim Carmody as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, appeared to influence polling. In July Newman extended an olive branch
to the legal fraternity and judiciary with a public apology and retreat on
several policy issues.[82]
The LNP moved ahead again in the August ̶ September polls with 54 ̶
46 but, by the last quarter of 2014, Newspoll had the two party-preferred vote
at 50–50 while the Essential Research poll for December 2014 showed LNP on 49
per cent and ALP on 51 per cent.[83]

On the night of the election announcement on 6 January 2015,
the polls indicated equal support for the two major parties. However, by 14
January, the Galaxy Research poll showed that the LNP could lose many of the
seats won in the 2012 landslide election, with primary support for the ALP
substantially improved in those seats.[84]
ReachTEL’s poll conducted on 20 January 2015 showed the LNP was still tracking
ahead of the ALP on the primary vote, and moving ahead on the two-party
preferred result, while the majority of voters polled (60.1 per cent) predicted
that the LNP would win the election.[85]
Election specialist Antony Green speculated that, apart from Newman’s seat of
Ashgrove, the ALP was likely to have too much ground to make up after the 2012
election.[86]

How far Queensland voters distinguished between federal and
state politics is unclear, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s absence from the
LNP’s campaign attracted media speculation that Newman was deliberately
distancing himself from the federal Coalition Government which was embroiled in
a series of political crises.[87]
Whilst the federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his shadow Cabinet joined
their Queensland ALP counterparts on the campaign trail, the Prime Minister was
noticeably absent from Newman’s launch of the LNP election campaign on 18
January. On 20 January, the Prime Minister announced that he would not be
joining the Queensland Premier on the Sunshine State campaign trail saying
that: ‘Campbell Newman is a very strong Premier, he’s got a strong team, he
wants to run his own race’.[88]
Then, on 27 January, just four days before the Queensland state election, the
Prime Minister controversially announced his ‘Captain’s pick’ award of
Australia’s highest honour to a member of the British royal family, a move that
shocked his Coalition colleagues and made headlines across Australia and
overseas.[89]

Following the 2012 election, observers expected that the ALP
would not have the numbers to mount a robust challenge for some years. Indeed,
in the first few months as Opposition Leader, Palaszczuk scored only 15 per cent
in a Galaxy poll as to who would make the better premier.[90]
Nevertheless, polling during 2013 and 2014 revealed a growing satisfaction with
her performance as leader as her exposure to the electorate grew. The early
announcement of the election in the midst of the holiday-season caught the ALP
without detailed policies or election costings, and mounted its campaign
through ‘old-fashioned door knocking and word of mouth’.[91]
On the eve of the election, Newspoll, Galaxy and ReachTEL all indicated that
the LNP had a decisive lead of 52‒48 on a two-party preferred basis.[92]
Most commentators did not expect the ALP to win the state election and
anticipated that there would be a change in leadership of the ALP shortly
thereafter.

The Family
First Party (FFP) [93]
was formed in 2001 in South Australia. The Queensland branch secured 0.82 per
cent of the primary vote at the 2009 election, 1.32 per cent in 2012 and 1.19
per cent in 2015. The party would normally have given preferences to the LNP
but, according to a report just prior to the election, it had not been able to
arrange a preference deal because the LNP had not ‘returned their phone calls’
while the LNP was ‘asking Queenslanders to just vote 1 LNP’.[94]

Katter’s
Australian Party (KAP)[95]
was formed by independent federal MP Bob Katter in 2011. KAP won two seats in
the 2012 Queensland state election, and gained a third in November 2012 when
Ray Hopper MP resigned from the LNP to join KAP. In March 2014 Rob Katter, son
of federal MP Bob Katter, announced that the three Queensland MPs in KAP were
seeking to merge with the two Palmer United Party (PUP) members to create a new
‘third force’ in Queensland politics.[96]
Queensland MP Dr Alex Douglas, leader of PUP in Queensland, expressed interest
in a merger, although he noted that any new party resulting from such a merger
would benefit from the strength of the PUP brand. However PUP’s federal leader,
Clive Palmer, moved quickly to dispel any talk of a merger, stating that there
were no plans for an amalgamation ahead of the next state election and
welcoming any Queensland KAP MPs to join his party.[97]

Former federal MP Pauline Hanson assumed leadership of One
Nation[98]
in November 2014, fielding 11 candidates for the 2015 election on a platform of
accountability, jobs and leadership, and promising to be the ‘watchdog’ of government.[99]
Apart from Hanson herself, candidates included a senior staffer to US Senator
Teddy Kennedy, President of the Corrective Services Union, business people and
professionals, as well as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation MP Jeff Knuth. Early
results took many Queenslanders by surprise. Hanson initially led the vote for
the LNP-held seat of Lockyer, having achieved a significant swing that
suggested a potential political comeback. If successful, she would become the
fourth crossbench MP in a hung parliament, although commentators predicted that
her lead would be reduced as preferences were distributed in areas where the
ALP was polling strongly. In the final result, Hanson failed to win the seat by
less than 200 votes.[100]

The Queensland Greens
(The Greens)[104]
was formed in 1991 but was the last of the state Greens parties in Australia to
gain parliamentary representation. In 2008 Ronan Lee defected to the Greens
from the ALP, giving the party its first state MP, although he lost his seat in
the 2009 state election. The party has gradually increased its share of the
vote, from 2.51 per cent in 2001 to 7.52 per cent in 2012.

After the polls had closed, there were early indications
that opinion polling had accurately predicted voter sentiment, with the LNP
ahead on primary votes. However, during the course of election night observers
watched in disbelief as results began to show a substantial swing towards the
ALP. As one commentator wrote:

The scale of the upset tonight dropped jaws
across the state and the country. Just three years ago, the LNP won an
unprecedented landslide. The vast majority that the LNP enjoyed made an ALP victory
at the 2015 election seem unimaginable.[105]

By the end of election night, the ALP had 43 seats to the
LNP’s 38 with five undecided including Mansfield, Maryborough and Whitsunday
(the LNP seat at the heart of the Abbot Point controversy—see Great Barrier
Reef above). Palaszczuk was optimistic, declaring:

Well I said it was going to be a ‘David and
Goliath’ battle and it certainly was. Who would have thought three years ago we
would be making history tonight? It's still too close to call at present but I
am very hopeful that we will be able to form government in this election.[106]

Nevertheless, with a number of close seats the early results
were inconclusive and Queenslanders had to wait as preferences were
painstakingly distributed. According to election analyst Ben Raue, pollsters
had used preferences from the 2012 state election to estimate how minor party
and independent votes would flow in the 2015 state election. However, this
election was different because minor party preferences had shifted from KAP to
the Greens ‘thanks to KAP’s declining vote and focus on a small number of
seats’.[107]
On 11 February Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk approached Governor Paul de
Jersey to advise him that she could form a minority government. The ECQ
finished declaring the results of the election on 13 February and the Governor
invited Palaszczuk to form a government. She was sworn in as the 39th Premier
of Queensland on 14 February.[108]
The final results are presented in Table 1 below:

The ALP received 37.5 per cent of the vote resulting in 44
seats and a swing of 10.8 per cent. This represented a significant recovery
from the 2012 election when the party was reduced to seven of the
89 seats (increasing to nine seats as a result of the Redcliffe and
Stafford by-elections in 2014). The ALP received the support of Independent
Peter Wellington enabling it to form a minority government.[109]

The ALP’s two party-preferred vote was higher than that
recorded by the Bligh Government when it was re-elected at the 2009 state
election. It won four seats in regional Queensland that it did not hold in
2009, benefitting from the return of first preference votes from KAP and the
flow of preferences from third parties. As ABC election analyst Antony Green
noted, ‘[t]he swing to and from Labor across the three elections [2009, 2012
and 2015] has gone around the LNP, not to and from the LNP’.[110]

The LNP, which had secured a record win in the 2012
election, won 42 seats and suffered an 8.3 per cent swing against the party
while Newman lost his seat of Ashgrove to the ALP’s Kate Jones with a swing
against him of 5.5 per cent.[111]
Lawrence Springborg was subsequently chosen by the party to replace Newman as
leader. Commentators speculated on the reasons for such a large swing away from
the LNP, with some pointing to the impact of federal political issues and the
unpopularity of the Prime Minister as well as domestic state issues (see Election
issues above)

The most successful of the minor parties was KAP with two
seats while the Greens, although failing to gain a single seat, proclaimed it
as the party’s ‘best-ever’ result in Queensland with 8.43 per cent.[112]
PUP, One Nation and Family First also failed to gain a seat

The new Queensland Parliament comprises 25 women out of 89 Members (28.1
per cent), a significant increase from 21.3 per cent in the previous parliament.[113]

Aftermath

Immediately following the election there was some confusion
about the final result after revelations that the PUP candidate for the seat of
Ferny Grove, Mark Taverner, was ineligible as a result of being an undischarged
bankrupt. The ECQ indicated that it would refer the Ferny Grove election result
to the Court of Disputed Returns. Labor’s Mark Furner won the seat by 466 votes
after a swing against the incumbent LNP Member Dale Shuttleworth. The LNP
argued that Mr Taverner’s 993 votes influenced the outcome and the result
should be annulled and a by-election held.[114]
The ALP argued that Furner’s winning margin was greater than the number of PUP
votes that did not distribute preferences, and the outcome was therefore clear.[115]

Speculation mounted about who should govern. Newman had
remained as caretaker Premier until the return of writs but, on 9 February,
Labor MP Jackie Trad declared that ‘Campbell Newman is the caretaker premier.
And come 6.01 pm tomorrow evening [10 February], he must resign his commission
to the governor’.[116]
In fact this was the cut-off date for the return of postal votes, and Newman
remained as caretaker Premier until the return of writs on 16 February.[117]
In the meantime the ECQ released a statement on 12 February indicating that it
had received new legal advice and would not be lodging a petition with the
Court of Disputed Returns:

...having regard to the final count in Ferny Grove, the winning
margin, the number of votes for the PUP candidate, and the distribution of
preferences.[118]

The LNP indicated that the party would be writing to
constituents about a ‘potential election re-run’, but the ECQ decision cleared
the way for the ALP, having won 44 seats, to claim government with the support
of Independent Peter Wellington. Wellington promised his support on confidence
motions while retaining the right to vote on conscience if ‘there is evidence
of gross fraud, misappropriation or like illegal activities’.[119]

On 13 February, the Governor Paul de Jersey invited
Palaszczuk to form government, and she announced her 14-member ministry (a reduction in size
from the Newman Government’s 19-member ministry).[120]
The new ministry represents a number of significant milestones in Australia’s
political history (see Appendix 5):

for the first time in Australia’s political history the majority
of Palaszczuk’s cabinet are women (eight women in a 14-member Cabinet,
representing 57.1 per cent)[121]

Palaszczuk is the first female state opposition leader to lead
her party to victory

Palaszczuk (Premier) and Trad (Deputy Premier) comprise the
second all-female elected leadership team in Australia (the first was the ALP’s
Kristina Keneally and Carmel Tebbutt in New South Wales in 2009 ̶ 11)

Yvette D’ath is Queensland’s first female Attorney-General and

Leeanne Enoch is the first Indigenous woman MP in the Queensland
Parliament and Queensland’s first Indigenous minister.[122]

Following the LNP’s defeat, the Courier
Mail reported that Newman had exchanged a series of text messages with the
Prime Minister about lessons learnt from the Queensland election, and
suggesting that the push for a federal leadership ballot on 9 February was
precipitated by federal Queensland Liberal MPs concerned by the LNP’s loss at
the recent state election.[123]

The 2015 Queensland state election was notable for a number
of reasons:

the election was held in the month of January for the first time
in the state’s history

the election result represented a dramatic reversal in the ALP’s
fortunes, with 44 seats compared with its seven seats at the 2012 election
(increasing to nine seats as a result of two by-elections in 2014); the 37-seat
swing is the second-largest against a sitting government in Queensland since
Federation, while the largest was the 44-seat swing against the ALP in 2012

the outcome was hailed by some media commentators as a surprise
victory for the ALP and a significant shift in Queensland politics, although
ABC election analyst Antony Green concluded that ‘history may look back and
view the 2015 election as a restoration of normal voting patterns’, and the
2012 election result as ‘temporary deviation from long-term party voting
patterns’[124]

the Palaszczuk ministry became the first ministry in Australia
where the majority of cabinet members are women and

Newman became the third Queensland Premier since Federation to
serve for one term, and the second to lose his own seat—the first was Digby Frank
Denham in 1915.

Within days of the official opening of the Queensland
Parliament on 25 February 2015, the ALP’s minority government was forced to
respond to revelations about the private life and past criminal convictions of
one of its new MPs, Billy Gordon, an Indigenous man who won the seat of Cook in
Cape York from the LNP. Premier Palaszczuk referred the matter to the
Queensland Police Commissioner to investigate Gordon’s actions to determine
whether he had broken the law. She expelled Gordon from the Labor caucus and
asked the state party’s organisational wing to expel him from the ALP (he
resigned from the party on 30 March to become an independent) and called on him
to resign as a member of the Queensland Parliament, a move that would trigger a
by-election in the seat of Cook.[125]
Gordon remained in Parliament (as at 12 August 2015) and, while generally supporting
his former Labor colleagues in the Parliament, voted with the Opposition during
a vote on the LNP’s proposal for a wait-time guarantee on elective surgery.[126]

In January 2013 the then Queensland Attorney-General, Jarrod
Bleijie, announced a review of several aspects of Queensland electoral law,
including changes to funding, disclosure and expenditure cap laws introduced by
the Bligh ALP Government in the Electoral Reform and Accountability
Amendment Act 2011. The LNP had opposed most of the reforms on the basis
that the legislation was developed ‘without adequate forethought and
consultation’, and was ‘designed to benefit political parties in Queensland’.[127]
In part the review was intended to bring transparency to the way in which money
influenced politics and to deal with matters of electoral administration.
However, several matters included in Part B of the discussion paper also
attracted attention.

The Electoral
reform: discussion paper published in January 2013 raised the
issue of compulsory voting in the Queensland state election as a possible area
for reform.[128]
The paper highlighted the tension between full political participation by the
electorate and whether citizens of a democracy should be compelled to vote. The
discussion paper sparked public debate including criticism from the then Prime
Minister Julia Gillard who accused the Newman Government of making democracy
‘the plaything of cashed-up interest groups’.[129]
With the release of the Electoral Reform: Queensland Electoral Review
Outcomes in July 2013, the Newman Government did not pursue the reform,
having found little support for change.[130]

The Electoral reform: discussion paper also discussed
the pros and cons of requiring voters to produce photographic identification at
the polling booth. At the heart of the issue was the need to balance the
benefits of ‘greater protection against voter impersonation’ and instilling
‘greater confidence in the electoral process and the integrity of the results’
against the potential for discrimination, greater administrative costs and the
absence of electoral fraud in Queensland.[131]
The Electoral
Reform Amendment Bill 2013 was passed, making it a legal requirement
for polling officials to be satisfied with voter identification when casting an
ordinary vote, or else to submit a declaration vote to be later verified by ECQ.[132]
In response the Human Rights Law Centre said ‘tens of thousands of vulnerable people are
threatened by voter ID laws. Those most at risk are elderly and young voters,
people in remote rural regions, people with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people and the homeless’.[133]

The new rules were first
used in the 2014 Stafford by-election with
almost all voters having the appropriate proof of identification.[134] However, as
the state election drew near, voters began voicing their concerns via social
media about whether they would be able to vote unless they had proof. According
to Green, most instances of multiple voting have been shown to be the result of
clerical error. Besides, if voters found themselves without the correct
identification when voting in their home electorate, they simply needed to
submit a declaration in addition to their ballot paper.[135] However a
community legal advocate giving evidence to a Queensland parliamentary inquiry
after the 2015 state election stated that some Queensland voters were ‘wrongly
turned away from polling booths’ when booth officials failed to allow voters to
make a declaration vote on the day and produce identification later.[136] According to
a University of Queensland submission, over 16,000 voters turned out without ID
and cast declaration votes.[137]

The Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) system has been used
in Queensland State elections since 1992. This voting system had
earlier been used in Queensland—from 1892 to 1942—and was reintroduced on the
recommendation of the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC).[138] This system
provides voters with a choice of either one candidate (single primary
preference), more than one candidate (partial distribution of preferences), or
all candidates (full distribution of preferences) on the ballot paper. The
issue of OPV has particular significance for the former state Liberal Party and
The Nationals, who were disadvantaged by OPV in previous elections including
the 2001 state election where they were challenged by One Nation and other
right-wing parties. In the 2015 election campaign, Premier Newman urged voters
to ‘just vote 1’ in order to ensure that voters focused only on the top two
polling candidates. Given that the LNP was expected to lead in first preference
votes, this was also a way of ensuring that second-placed candidates could not
beat the leading LNP candidate on preferences. According to Newman, by voting
‘1’ voters would be avoiding the possibility of a hung parliament.[139]

(a) Kate Jones was
the ALP candidate at all 3 elections, with Campbell Newman the LNP candidate
for 2012 and 2015. Scott McConnel was the LNP candidate for the 2009 election.
Source: Compiled by Parliamentary Library from data in Electoral
Commission Queensland (ECQ), Election
information and results, accessed 12 August 2015.

[2]. The last
January election in Australia was the Tasmanian state election held on 23
January 1913.

[3] The
Legislative Assembly comprises 89 members, each representing a single-member
electorate. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Northern Territory (NT)
parliaments are also unicameral. The Queensland Upper House was abolished in
1922.

[36]. Driscoll had been referred to the Crime and Misconduct
Commission in November 2012 and to the Queensland Parliament Ethics Committee
in June 2013. In November 2013 he was found guilty of 42 counts of contempt of parliament,
four counts of failing to register interests and one count of misleading the
House.

[59]. J Wanna, ‘Newman’s
political suicide’, The Australian, 4 February 2015, p. 12, accessed
19 February 2015. Wanna notes that, of the 44 federal elections since 1901,
none have been held in January or February and similarly in Queensland’s 42
state elections since 1902 most have been held in March to May and none in
January.

[71]. One of the
largest lessees is Indian power distribution giant, Adani. In 2014 a legal
challenge was mounted against the federal government and Adani to test the
powers of the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999. According to the head of research at Deakin
University’s law school the case, which will consider whether greenhouse gas
emissions generated from the coal will impact negatively on the Great Barrier
Reef, is ’a potential game changer in relation to mining law in Australia’: J
Rose, ‘Reef
motif’, The Saturday Paper, 24 January 2015, p. 9, accessed 11
February 2015.

[75]. ‘ALP
plans “fair” bikie laws’, The Courier Mail, 27 January 2015, p. 8, accessed
5 February 2015. The Criminal Association Act 2009(Qld) enabled the Queensland Police Commissioner to apply to the
Supreme Court to have an organisation declared criminal under stringent
criteria, and to place control orders on individuals.

[107]. B Raue, ‘Qld 2015: what happened to the
preferences?’, The Tally Room, 3 February 2015, accessed 19 February
2015. Polls were also incorrect because more people allocated multiple
preferences than they had previously, and fewer votes were exhausted.

[115]. The High
Court ruled that the presence of an unelected ineligible candidate is not
sufficient to overturn a result, but that it must also affect the outcome. See
A Green, ‘Ferny
Grove preference distribution published’, Antony Green’s election blog, ABC
elections, 12 February 2015, accessed 19 February 2015.

[121]. The Bligh
Government previously held the record for the highest number of women in a
Queensland ministry with 6 women out of 18 (33.3 per cent) between 2010
and 2012.

[122]. Enoch
resolved to enter politics in 2009 when commentator Andrew Bolt’s article
questioning the Aboriginality of her and other prominent Australians became the
basis for a court case about the right to free speech. See K Struthers, ‘A
day of firsts for women in politics, and one in particular’, The
Conversation, 16 February 2015, accessed 12 August 2015.

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